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When Breath Becomes Air

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Paul Kalanithi

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“It's a theme born out of the Christian faith rather than a pagan understanding of the universe. Both views agree that we human beings are small, frail, and limited in our ability to battle the forces of the world that seek to destroy us. In response, the pagan worldview says, "We cannot win this on our strength. Therefore, let us go down fighting nobly and die well." The Christian worldview, on the other hand, says, "We cannot win this on our own strength. Therefore, we must rely on a Power outside of ourselves to win this for us.”

“That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. I was weeping for an altogether different reason. When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten.”

“I do see Christ everywhere and in everything, as the One in Whom all things, including Western literature, consist. Shakespeare's plays are among the "all things" that Paul says are created "for Christ" (col. 1:16-17). If there is offense in taking Paul quite literally and pressing his global affirmation into crannies of the academy that would rather not hear from an apostle, it is an offense for which I cannot apologize. Pressing Paul's point is a straightforward and unavoidable demand of discipleship. (page 28)”

“I believe we find imaginative satisfaction in stories that end with weddings because we live in a world that will end with a wedding. The Bible tells the story of history, a story that is so mysteriously "built into" the structures of our minds and practices, so that even writers who resist this story cannot help but leave traces of it -- faint and distorted as they may be -- on every page. (Leithart 30)”